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The one inch per gallon rule is outdated and doesn't really apply to most fish, apart from those which actually stay under an inch long. Otherwise people end up thinking it's okay to put a 10 inch fish in a 10 gallon tank -- which it's not.

I'm not familiar with inverts as we don't have them in my country, but since you already have guppies a nice big school of Endlers Livebearers would be perfect -- they also prefer their water a little hard and on the slightly alkaline side of neutral, so they really could not be any more ideal for your tank.

Ordinarily I would recommend a big school (say 20) neons for your tank but your pH is a little too high for their liking. However, if your LFS shares the same or similar pH as you they have probably been bred and raised in water around the same pH, so they will probably have adapted quite happily to the higher pH.

Of course, another option is to put some driftwood in your tank or run peat through your filter to lower the pH. I think that most shrimp prefer low pH and soft water. Whereas snails prefer higher pH and hard water.

1. A lot of the farmed tetra species would be ok. Lemons, white tip, pristella, neons, cardinals
2. That would depend on the way you set up your tank
3. inch/gallon is a rule of thumb at best. Shrimp do have a lower bioload so there is some truth.

Not all shrimp like low ph and soft. The new sulawesi shrimp for example like it quite hard.
What most shrimps do need is chemically very clean water and stable values. Add some hiding places and some fine leaved plants and you could basically chose from any of the caridina or neocaridina species.

Your guppies will breed, so unless you want a ton of guppies you will want something that would eat the fry (i think most tetras will)

I would say a large school of either cardinals or endlers will give you lots of color. As for inverts - I have assassin snails and red cherry shrimp and love them. The shrimp need lots of hiding places otherwise they will only come out at night, but the assassin snails are great b/c they will eat most pest snails

I am fairly certain that my Guppies are all Male which should eliminate any over breeding issues. My LFS told me that Tetras might eat my shrimp. Is there any truth to this? I would consider my tank heavily planted with artificial plants, there are also a quite a few places to hide.

Hatchets can jump and you would need a lid. Mine never do. They also need some cover near the top to feel secure. Amazon frogbit works for a lot of people, mine tend to hang out around the high piece of wood.

One word of advice, most of them are wild caught. I recently read a study of what they can carry. You do want to quarantine them and treat with a preventive course of something that kills internal parasites!! (be careful with that in the main tank, not many are shrimp friendly and even small residue will pose problems)

The bioload of inverts is negligible. You would have to have a ton of them to have them cause a problem with overstocking.
I was told over and over again that assassin snails would not eat my shrimp and I know many here keep them together harmoniously. I had them together for months and then suddenly the shrimp started dwindling in numbers. Finally three days ago I caught an assassin in my tank eating my favorite tiger shrimp, the biggest one I had.
Lesson learned. Next time I have a snail problem in a tank with shrimp, I'll leave it alone.

My pH is 8.0. My neons have always done well in that pH, but I subscribe to the argument that I got all my neons from the petsmart 2 blocks from my home so they were used to the water in my area. I have seen them attempt to pick at the shrimp, but the ones I had were all too large to be eaten. I have no doubt that they would immediately snatch up a smaller shrimp as a nice afternoon snack.